


principle of perseverence

by tkreyesevandiaz



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: A little bobby nash, Buck always knows what to say, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode Fix-it, Episode Related, Episode: s3e12 Fools, Fluff, Gen, I think this is a coda?, Light Angst, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Protective Eddie Diaz, Worried Eddie Diaz, Worried Evan "Buck" Buckley, mentions of Buckley parents, spoilers for episode 12
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-24
Updated: 2020-03-24
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:29:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23292484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tkreyesevandiaz/pseuds/tkreyesevandiaz
Summary: “I don’t want to do that to him. I don’t want to draw a fence and have him always be peeking from the wrong side of it, watching everyone else do the things he can’t.”
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley & Christopher Diaz & Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV), Evan "Buck" Buckley & Christopher Diaz (9-1-1 TV), Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz, Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Comments: 23
Kudos: 476





	principle of perseverence

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I couldn't resist writing this so I wrote it in 3 hours please love it xD 
> 
> Some of the dialogues below are from the actual episode so if you haven't watched episode 12, please don't read!
> 
> This focuses more on how Buck helps Eddie navigate the problem, but Christopher is heavily there in spirit naturally.
> 
> Why are all our Buddie scenes from Buck's kitchen omg
> 
> Enjoy!

Buck leaned against his counter, mind racing a mile a minute as he listened to Eddie talk. Already, he was sorting solutions in his mind to try to help the situation.

He kept to himself as the older man ranted. It wasn’t because he had nothing to say; no, quite the opposite. Rather, Buck knew Eddie had to get this all off his chest. Speaking the words into the vastness of Buck’s apartment had always helped Eddie see reason, even before Buck said anything in return. Though today, even that showed no sign of happening.

It had been a few days since Chris fell from the skateboard. A few days since Carla had explained to Eddie that a talk about limits was a conversation that was absolutely necessary for him to have with his kid. And now, Eddie was sitting at the counter, nursing his second beer and looking torn to shreds.

“I don’t want to do that to him. I don’t want to draw a fence and have him always be peeking out from the wrong side of it, watching everyone else do the things he can’t,” Eddie settled on finally. “Buck, when he sat there, completely upset because he thought his father had lied to him about the things he’d be able to do, I honestly lost my sense of gravity. I don’t even want to know how I looked at that moment.”

But Buck already knew. Eddie had been shattered to know that his kid was hurting so much. Carla had called Buck and told him about it, in good will. She’d had an inkling that Buck would be the only one to get through to Eddie, and she’d explained to him that Eddie refused to tell his kid that he couldn’t do something.

Buck got Carla’s point. Eddie would have to talk to Chris, before the cruel world did it for him.

“Pretty sure all kids call their parents liars at some point,” Buck pointed out, sliding yet another bottle across the table. Except this one was alcohol-free, not that he’d be telling Eddie that. The man had his kid to get home to in an hour; there was no way Buck was going to let Eddie drown his sorrows in endless bottles of beer.

“Yeah, well, it feels a little different when you hear it coming out of your kid.” The older man still wouldn’t look at him, not even as Buck rounded the counter to take a seat in front of him. The self-loathing in Eddie’s voice had him softening as he studied his friend.

“Just wait till he gets to the ‘I don’t have to do what you tell me’ phase,” he smiled, taking a sip of his own beer.

“Aren’t you still in that phase?” Eddie deflected lightly, as if he didn’t want to think about that future at just this second. Buck frowned around the bottle, taken aback by something that was uncalled for. Admittedly, the words hurt, even though he knew Eddie hadn’t meant them. They weren’t true; Buck hadn’t been in that phase for a very long time and he knew it.

Sure, he did drive everyone crazy at times with his headstrong nature, but it wasn’t like he went out of his way to defy orders. Though outside of Athena, Bobby and Maddie, there weren’t many people he’d take orders from to begin with.

That, however, was a conversation to have when both of them weren’t so worried about Chris, and when Buck wasn’t infinitely worried about Eddie. He turned his attention back to his best friend as he started talking again. “The thing is, he’s right. I lied to him. Or maybe I lied to myself. Either way, I feel like a fool. I spent years trying to convince my kid to believe in the Easter Bunny. But now I gotta tell him none of it’s real.”

“Yeah…” Buck dragged the word out, peering up at the ceiling as if there was a script for him to read off of. “I think you might be overcorrecting here.”

Eddie quirked a brow, as if to deny the statement. “Told him he’s no different than the other kid. But he is; he has CP. There’s a lot he can’t do.” 

Buck knew why Eddie was treating this like two extremes, even though he denied it. He was scared for his kid, scared to limit him, but now that he was faced with those limits, he was drawing the boundaries in way too thick, and way too permanent. There was a thin line between protective and suffocating, and Eddie was stuck in the middle

Still, describing the situation as having lied seemed like an exaggeration.

“The thing about the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, they’re metaphors parents use for kids to understand the world. It’s not about if they're real or not real.” Buck laughed as he remembered telling those kids at the mall that Santa wasn’t real. “Bobby drilled this in my head after the mall emergency with the pepper spray during Christmas. It’s about instilling a faith that there are good things to come if you do good things; an incentive of sorts.”

Eddie looked confused, and Buck was sure that he probably wasn’t explaining this right, so he switched tactics.

“Have you ever heard of Jim Abbott?” Buck settled on using a metaphor he knew Eddie would understand.

“Baseball player?”

“Mhm.” Buck leaned up, ditching his bottle in favour of balancing his forearms on his knees to look Eddie in the eye. Or to force Eddie to look _him_ in the eye; whichever would get the worried father to _listen._

“Pitched a no-hitter in the nineties, which in itself is pretty crazy, but it’s even crazier if you know that Jim Abbott was only born with one hand.” He emphasized his last words softly, urging Eddie to understand them. 

Buck knew he’d taken Eddie by surprise, given how enraptured the man looked. Buck would take anything at this point, besides the steady indifference that had surrounded all the other times he'd tried to talk to his friend. He chuckled. “Yeah, really. I, uh, read his book when I was in the hospital.”

It had been a combination of things that had gotten him to pick up the book. First, there was the possibility of him not gaining back full use of his own limb. There had been a brief possibility of having to amputate his leg because of how long he’d laid in the gravel, a breeding ground for all sorts of infectious agents.

But a larger part of him had started reading the book because of how inspired he was by Christopher. Before, his attention had always been captured by how determined Christopher was to not let his cerebral palsy stop him from trying. Buck knew that was a quality he gained both in teaching and in principle from his father, and he admired both of them for it. 

Until Eddie had shown up at his door on their day off, agitated to within an inch of his life, Buck hadn’t realized how difficult it was to navigate that ground. Most parents already wanted to shelter their kids from everything, but Eddie had always encouraged Christopher to try. He just hadn’t fully explained that his way of trying would be different from the others around him.

Buck let Eddie simmer in his own thoughts for a while, knowing that he was getting through to him.

“Okay, how’d he do it?” Eddie said finally.

“He practiced switching his glove to his throwing hand relentlessly, so that he could field after he pitched.” These baseball metaphors had gone completely over his head until he met Eddie. By the smirk that tugged at Eddie’s lips, he knew it too.

“I like the positivity. I’m just not sure how any amount of practice is gonna help Chris stay on a skateboard.” It hurt to see the father look so defeated in front of him.

“You’ve never been a helicopter dad, Eddie, and don’t start now. It’s not a black and white situation.” Buck said gently. “There’s got to be some way we can help him try the new things he wants to. Like when we went to Christmas two years ago, and he was determined to meet Santa on his own. You let him have his space, but you kept a watchful eye on him. Sure, things like skateboarding aren’t the same, but when it comes down to it, he’s going to have people that support his every effort, and that’s what matters most.”

Like he’d wished his parents did. They meant well, they really did, but some people just aren’t cut out to be parents. While his parents had provided every monetary resource they could, he had still missed having someone by his side cheering him on or helping him up when he fell. Especially after Maddie left.

“No one comes to parenthood with a manual on how to solve every problem in their kid’s life. And those that do end up throwing it away, because this isn’t a test. It’s a journey.” Buck looked away from his friend in that moment, knowing that Eddie would try and end up reading him. 

“No two people have the same journey. They never have, CP or no CP. You and Christopher aren’t exceptions to that rule. And Carla’s right. You need to have a conversation with him, because otherwise, he will feel dejected and embarrassed every time he wants to try something new. How you want to talk to your kid is entirely up to you, but don’t let one setback lead you into shutting out all the other possibilities in your kid’s life.”

Eddie got out of his chair and came over to hug Buck tightly. This took him by surprise. “Thank you.” The gratefulness in Eddie’s voice lit warmth in his chest as Buck smiled over his shoulder. He pulled back to squeeze the junction of Eddie’s neck and shoulder, just as he’d done to him all those months ago.

“Now, tell me about the teacher.”

Eddie rolled his eyes, tension having bled from his stance. Backing away, the two men settled back down in their seats. “There’s nothing to tell. Whatever I’d been thinking was clearly ruined when I yelled at her about something that wasn’t completely her fault.”

“Yeah, you should apologize for that if you ever want to get into her good books again.” Buck rolled his eyes as he got up. Pulling out a container, he started packing the leftover lunch, knowing that it was one of Christopher’s favourites. 

There’d been a lot of talk of couples and dating and all the stuff Buck _missed_ about having a companion in the past few weeks. He knew though, that when it came down to it, Buck wasn’t ready to let anyone else in his heart. Not when he was still comparing every potential candidate to his best friend, like the idiot he was.

“Ironic because she’s the English teacher. And she’s my son’s teacher. There’s no way anything can happen there anyway. It was a one-off glance, probably will never happen again.”

“True, and maybe so, but Chris isn’t going to be in her class forever. There’s no harm in trying if you’re ready to,” Buck shrugged, ignoring the pang in his chest. Eddie hummed thoughtfully but said nothing as he drained the last of his non-beer. 

“Don’t think I didn’t notice whatever that was, Buckley,” Eddie said, mirth dancing in his tone. He slid the bottle down to where Buck was tossing his own into the recycle bin.

“Can’t have you driving back all drunk.” Eddie laughed. 

“Well I appreciate it, and I appreciate the advice.” Eddie gathered his jacket. “And tonight’s dinner.” He shook the container playfully. 

Buck couldn’t resist adding on one more sentence to ease his friend’s heart. 

“Raising a kid is already difficult, Eds. But you’re raising one with a disability, alone. Props to you, because he’s come out as one badass kid. Don’t sell yourself short by this one takeback. You’re growing with him, both as a person and a father. You can’t be perfect, no parent is.” 

Eddie looked like there was a lot he wanted to say, but when he spoke, it was only to say, “I haven’t been alone in a long time, Buck.” 

The words and the meaningful look Eddie sent him echoed wildly in his mind, long after Eddie left.

* * *

“Skate Anima.” Buck walked into the station the next day, bouncing with excitement as he shoved his phone in Eddie’s face.

“What?” Eddie took the device and set his rag down to scroll through the page Buck had out. There were basically different contraptions built around a skateboard.

“A Brazilian company that builds adapted skateboards. It’s basically a project between a physiotherapist and a psychologist that helps people with disabilities skate, but especially children. The physiotherapist decided to design these things because of his own disabled daughter who wanted to skate.”

Buck reached over his shoulder and clicked on one video, a mother pushing a young boy in what looked to be a walker. There was a rectangular box surrounding a harness, below which was a skateboard that was attached to the wheels on the bottom rungs. 

“See? It comes with a harness and complete protection on all sides. There are the poles he can hang onto and the design means that it’s completely safe for him to try out.”

Eddie looked at the video for a heartbeat longer before narrowing his eyes at Buck, knowing all too well what that grin meant.

“You already got this, didn’t you.” It wasn’t a question, and judging from the sheepish look on Buck’s face now, Eddie had hit the target spot on.

“We don’t have to use it if you don’t want him to,” Buck added quickly. “It was just an option. I reached out to the guy that runs the account and he’s going to send me the parts with an instructional manual on how to build it.”

“Buck, this is…” There were no words for the appreciation clawing up his spine and twisting his stomach into knots. This had to have been expensive, in ways Eddie couldn't afford right now.

“It’s a present for Christopher. But if you don’t want him using it, he doesn’t have to. It’s just an option,” Buck said softly. Eddie could see the doubt in his face now, and hated that he’d put it there.

“I talked to Christopher this morning,” he admitted.

“Yeah? How’d that go?”

Eddie smiled as he passed the phone back. “Not that bad actually. He already knew what I was going to talk to him about, but it was getting over the initial embarrassment that was the issue. He didn’t realize that he didn’t have anything to be ashamed of.”

He remembered those days of his own life all too clearly. Days spent faking sickness so he wouldn’t have to face the school bully for the tenth time that week. Thankfully, that didn’t seem to be an issue in Christopher’s school, but Eddie had no hope of understanding the inner battles his kid fought with. He could only support him to the best of his ability.

“I told him that we might need to wait a few years before he tries things completely on his own, because there are limits to his capabilities that are different from the other kids.” 

Buck looked proud of him as he leaned against the truck, a wide grin splitting his face. “See? I told you so.”

Eddie didn’t have it in him to brush it off. Buck did more for them on a regular basis than Eddie would ever be able to repay in a lifetime.

“I know I don’t say it as often as you deserve, but I appreciate you, Buck.” A flush spread across the younger man’s face as he squirmed. Compliments were still touchy, since Buck still didn’t believe that he deserved them, but with time, Eddie knew he’d learn to fall in love with his big heart the way Eddie had.

The way...Eddie had?

The realization jolted him in place as Buck pulled out a bunch of papers and thrust them into Eddie’s empty hands before leaving the station. Eddie was sure that Buck said a few other things to him that he'd absently waved off, but right now, he had no hope of comprehending anything else.

He loved Buck. Plain and simple.

“Was that Buck? On his day off?” Bobby’s voice brought him back to Earth, where he’d been sorting through his existential romantic crisis.

“Yeah, he came by to show me this skateboard walker for Chris. Basically, someone can push it so Chris can skateboard too.” Eddie pushed his realization to the back of his mind as he turned his attention to the printouts in his hands. He showed them to Cap. Bobby looked over them, pointing out each safety feature as he went.

Though if he’d learned anything about Buck, it was that Buck treated Chris exactly like one treated their own kid. And Eddie knew that he wouldn’t have gone ahead with the idea had it have had a sliver of danger to it.

“That sounds like a great idea.” Bobby’s approval settled the last of Eddie’s fears about letting Christopher do this.

“It was Buck’s,” Eddie managed, looking out at the station bay where his best friend had walked out with a skip in his step. “Of course it’s a great idea.”

He just wished he found a way to show Buck how much it meant. 

* * *

“Did no one teach you how to read instructions?” Buck asked a very disgruntled Eddie, who was sitting in Buck’s living room surrounded by half-assembled parts. 

“I did read them!” 

“You’re supposed to follow them too.” Buck shook his head as he picked up the pipes they were supposed to join together.

“It looked simple enough, I thought I’d be able to assemble this,” Eddie grumbled as Buck easily slotted the contraption in place. “How’d you do that?”

“You read the paper it came with, Eddie.” Buck rolled his eyes. “Okay, that looks fine, how about you go grab Chris and I go grab Carla, and we take this and meet you there.”

“How about you take my truck? It’ll be easier to fit this in the back, rather than the jeep.” Eddie exchanged the keys and started to leave. 

Just as Buck was thinking of how to maneuver the contraption out of his front door, Eddie stopped to thank him again. 

“It’s alright, Eddie. Don’t worry about it. Whatever makes Chris happy.” 

He’d said the words casually, like a truth he kept bound to him. Distracted as he was, he missed the stricken look on Eddie’s face, the one that would’ve told him that perhaps, his heart wasn’t quite as stupid as Buck thought it was.

It took a lot of huffing and puffing to get the contraption to lay flat without disassembling but Buck managed it as he climbed into the cab of Eddie's truck. He picked up Carla, the two of them catching up as she looked approvingly at the rig in the back.

When they got to the park, Carla texted Eddie just as Buck covered the rest of the contraption with a large tarp he’d found lying around his apartment. The two of them hid behind it, peeking out to see if they could see a familiar boy on crutches. 

There he was, though seemingly dragging his feet. Buck smiled to himself, knowing that he’d be over the moon in the matter of minutes. 

“Thank God you knocked some sense into that boy, because heaven knows I wouldn’t have been so nice about it,” Carla whispered, nudging Buck. 

“You don’t have a mean bone in your body, shush.” Buck stuck his tongue out just as Eddie pointed towards them. On cue, they popped out from behind the walker. 

“SURPRISE!” 

Other people in the park jolted too, but Buck watched as Eddie crouched down in front of his son, a warm smile taking hold of him. Yeah, Eddie was what a father should be like. 

Carla kept her camera rolling as Buck and Eddie strapped Chris into the harness, as they got him balanced and as Buck fastened a helmet on his head. Just to be safe. 

All the while, Buck kept an eye on the wide grin on Christopher’s face. The child was practically glowing with his excitement, and his heart swelled to be a part of that. 

“Ready to ride?” Eddie leaned between the shorter of the two bars, beaming at his son. Buck had missed seeing the two of them so carefree together, and he knew that he’d cherish the video and photos Carla had captured of this moment for the rest of his life. 

“Ready!” Christopher piped happily. Eddie’s face scrunched up a little in response to how adorable his son looked, but as him and Buck exchanged a look, they prepared to push the walker.

It took them a quick second to figure out a rhythm that worked, with Buck’s longer legs and Eddie’s initial reluctance to go too fast. And there were still people milling about. 

But once they caught on, speeding up with Carla running behind them, and Chris shrieking between them with laughter, Buck couldn’t help but think, that perseverance really was the true marker of this moment. 

The four of them slowed down for a second to give Buck, Carla and Eddie a chance to catch their breath. 

“Y’all have me doing more exercise today than I’ve done in months,” Carla retorted, swiping through the pictures. Buck leaned over her shoulder to look at one of him, Eddie and Christopher smiling at each other. 

Without a doubt, that one was going to turn into a poster to put in his living room. Secret feelings be damned. 

“How was that, bud?” Eddie asked Christopher, rapping his knuckles on the helmet lightly. 

“It was great! Can we do it again?” Buck and Carla laughed while Eddie pretended to faint. 

“We sure can bud, but first, I think we need to say thank you to Buck.” 

Buck wanted to glare at Eddie, always awkward with expressions of thankfulness. And when it came from kids, it was adorable but still made Buck uncomfortable. 

But it was important for kids to learn polite manners, so Buck kept quiet as Christopher expressed his gratitude. 

“It’s no problem, buddy. Now, let’s go again.” He grasped two poles and with one look at Eddie, the two started pushing again. 

They could have pushed the hybrid skateboard-walker a thousand times, because Christopher’s carefree smile made it all worth it in the end. 

The overjoyed look Eddie sent him over Christopher’s head only sealed the deal. 

_Yeah, this was all worth it._

**Author's Note:**

> Leave me kudos and comments!
> 
> Skate Anima is actually a real thing! You all can look it up, I assume that's where they got the design for that walker!
> 
> You can find me on Tumblr at [zeethebooknerd](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/zeethebooknerd) or on Twitter at [tkreyesevandiaz](https://twitter.com/tkreyesevandiaz).


End file.
